Detailed Notes
This is a short series from our discussion and presentation on ways to improve the Develpreneur site, podcast, and mentoring. We discuss upcoming changes and new suggestions.
Transcript Text
[Music] yeah that's really cool i'm it excites me to have these conversations um one of the reasons i'm really um excited is is you know they're as i'm sure we all have just a bunch of different ideas you want to implement um and maybe just having a set aside time to come together with some friends and have that accountability actually go heads down on it and do something about it you know that'd be really cool just even just in a boot camp setting where we're learning but also being purposeful about implementing the things that we're uh talking about it's really cool it's really cool i'm excited about that now with that accountability is one day a week sufficient for that because one of the things we had kind of thrown out there was maybe splitting up the mentoring piece a little bit you know how we have like the beginning part where we're at what are we doing maybe pull that section out and maybe do that on like a monday or a tuesday evening like have a brief maybe 30 15 30 minute meeting move that there so it's earlier in your week so you can kind of attack it during the week and then on the weekend we have a you know quick you know how'd you do uh and then just go right into the presentation yeah that accountability is certainly certainly welcome i think for me um if i would be frank i think committing to multiple meetings one more than one a week would be would be difficult just with my schedule um i think also um it's it's good to have that accountability so i'm open to more ideas um i don't think i'm completely turned off by a 15-20 minute meeting on a monday and then going from there meeting up on saturdays i'm just concerned for my schedule that's really weird here so would something like that be more would work better if it was like uh you get a reminder email on monday that says hey here's the three things you need to do today or tomorrow and then maybe wednesday it's like hey did you get that done because you need to get it done so that you're prepped for for the weekend that's a good idea um now that's like it's a softer touch but it's also a in your face a reminder i like that um i was even geared toward like a um a reminder to go add your status to uh slack or something like that and say hey where you at uh go put it in the slack just to have again that extra layer of accountability someone didn't post their status in slack maybe it's someone needs to be reached out to him a little a little bit more i know this is not work and i'm not trying to make it work i think um my uh my my issue isn't necessarily you know that i don't want to get it done it's just the making of the time and having that accountability is probably good for me it may not be best for everybody yeah that's the challenge with all of these is that it's you know we've all got other stuff to do and so it's finding the right um it's really it's a it's sort of like it's it's a balanced thing it's finding the right balance to say well how much do you want to to put into this and how much can you put into this and then finding a way to you know give that nudge to say hey if you want to do this this is what you you know you need to do today or you know the next 24 hours to make sure that you're properly prepared that you've given this the time that you want to uh an example of that was uh it was this year maybe it's last year i think was this year started the year with the 21 day challenge where it was yeah it was it was fairly open-ended i think as it was basically hey day one and actually i think it was like day you know minus one or something like that the day or two before you started what do you wanna do what do you want to accomplish at the beginning of this year and then you know the the day before said okay we're going to get started tomorrow and then day one it was a you know it's basically it was just a it was an email reminder that said okay spend your you know 5 10 15 minutes whatever it was make sure you get that done and i think it came out at like 5 00 a.m or 6 a.m or something like that so sort of start of the day said hey if you want to do this once you just go get it done now and then you're done and then day two would come through and say okay you should have gotten day one done if not go catch up and let's you know get yourself going forward and then it was just daily reminders that was you know basically a combination of congratulations you've made it you know a week you've made it two weeks you made it 15 days in a row whatever it is but also reminders and nudges to say hey if you didn't for example like on the weekend hey if you didn't get that done this week this is a perfect time for you to go catch up on that thing that you wanted to do um so stuff like that is just that combination of how much do you want to put into it and then a nudge to say hey did you get that done and if you haven't let's let's either catch up or let's at least get it done today so we can we can get a streak started yeah yeah that's good other suggestions comments topics things to discuss yeah one thing i kind of like how you're putting things in the meetings in that rob but like what we just talked about i think maybe if we find a tool or maybe use jira or something to kind of keep that in your face kind of reminder type thing yeah we had a you know we had the trello board that we used for a while um but maybe something like that where it's more reminders that it's out there uh because we'd go put stuff in you know when we'd set our talk about our goals for the next meeting but there it was really then we just didn't touch it again until the next meeting so maybe something like that where we just sort of you know find a way to do an automation and there may be a nice tool like that that says hey you were going to get the x done by you know why date and you've got a week to get that done have you worked on it um so you may find something like that which could be in itself a good little tool for us to get used to as sort of a a nudger type application or something like that that periodically it's it's built to remind you hey you're going to work on that well didn't jira buy trello so isn't that integrated with okay so i think trello has a plug-in for slack so maybe we could connect it to our slack channel and maybe drive it that way uh we could it does have one um i think it's based on updates but um there are some things like that that i thought about looking at one's called um what's it called oh it's called stand up alice um that is a slack plug-in and all it does is you set it up and it's just like it asks you you know at x time like at 8 00 am every day let's say all right time for today's stand up what did you do what are you gonna do and then it gives you a reminder that at like 8 30 it would just it post everybody hears what everybody you know put for their status so it's an automated stand-up tool but something like that where you just you know you get sort of a check-in kind of thing that says hey how you doing on that and it's it's it's not a super soft touch but it's it's about as soft as you're gonna get because it's basically hey give me an answer and if you don't then it's just gonna say hey you know michael didn't respond today you know something along those lines but it's just enough to you know give you that little nudge to say hey you know there's that little bit of accountability so that's not a bad idea at all is to put something like that build some more uh accountability or reminder tools into some of our processes other suggestions comments schedule changes anything like that i think to me i think saturday's it's perfect and that i like also the flexibility like any like what you can or is that just weekdays sometimes it can be hard so yeah yeah and that's like i said it's it seems to work that we don't we don't firmly stick to it plus we have you know at least usually in the summer you know maybe july it seems like or august so we'll we'll take some time off and then at the end of the year we typically take some time off so it's not for me being someone who cranks out presentations on a lot of these it doesn't feel like it's an in you know overly burdensome so i'm and i'm hoping that's the way it is for everybody else it doesn't feel like it's it's too much or too rigid others questions comments suggestions all right so let's see uh so let's see next steps um some changes and stuff so it sounds like from the mentor point of view we're in pretty good shape there we will look at potentially some longer term or some some longer session things that we may want to cover uh what we'll probably end up doing is maybe put out to everybody sort of a if we get sort of a short list of here's three or four things that we could do is see what what people would want to do and then probably nail that down a little bit more like hey do you want it would you be willing to do four hours on a saturday or six hours on a saturday would you rather do six hours on one or three hours across two different saturdays some of those kinds of combinations um are we and maybe i think it's probably under that communication changes is maybe we'll look at some options for being more frequent touches uh and how that may you know help us out as far as accountability and things of that nature particularly with a mentor class every other week then it wouldn't be hard for us to maybe you know on the weeks that we're not on the mentor class is send out a little reminder email that says hey you were going to work on a b and c how's that working you know just like a simple nudge type email um i've got a really good list of topics uh that have come out of this some some future things to take a look at so those would be some of the things that will you know especially some of the more like the application architecture and patterns and things of that nature uh that will and and i do like the database stuff uh that's a that was a really good suggestion as well so we made you know swing back around to that particularly from the more uh technical tutorial type stuff that we do in the youtube that may be a great thing for us to do in a topic for us to cover next in that area uh before moving off anything else that we haven't talked about that's a topic or anything that anybody would want to want us to take a look at all right you're done uh let's see i do want to remind everybody and we we talk about this every time we have a mentor session but that it is i think it is worthwhile for you to take a look every so often at least out at the development or site there's a there's a lot of content that gets more or less routed through that to some way in some way form or fashion um if you have if you ever come up with anything info development or dot com uh you can always hit us plus our you know you've got our slack channels you guys are on there uh there's those get responded to relatively quickly uh maybe on a weekend or a holiday we may not jump on but for the most part uh you're gonna probably get a response within i don't know within a day maybe immediately so even if you run into like you know some problem you need some help with don't be afraid to throw it out there and see what happens um the development or channel the twitter at developing or um there are the way it's set up is it's about every probably about two-thirds of the content that goes out is not developing or content it's links to articles and things like that that look like they may have interest so you know if you're actually on twitter enough that you actually follow you know look at a twitter stream or that developer nor is one i would i would recommend i do it myself as something that's sort of just a almost like a book park place that i can go back and take a look at things and say oh yeah that was something i wanted to spend more time digging into so that's that's actually become a moderately useful way to to deal with twitter amongst all the other you know i know there's a lot of noise in that but uh sometimes you can filter it down by that channel or that user and that makes it a lot easier uh see any anything else you guys wanted to throw out there before we as we sort of wrap up our a little town hall kind of discussion this has been i i want to thank all of you this has been great this has been a lot of great feedback a lot of excellent suggestions a lot of things for us to to think about as we move forward um one of the things i do want to do that i haven't mentioned i'm not sure we even mentioned it in a mentor class is getting to some sort of a schedule sort of like a topic calendar um maybe 2022 will be the year that we do that where ideally or we we have something published and mapped out that here's the next uh 10 mentor sessions or here's some of the details of upcoming youtube posts or podcast episodes or things like that you know the podcast we try to do it by seasons and so that you've got a rough idea of what's coming up uh youtube channel's sort of the same way as we tend to try to do it in topic special topics and things like that sort of focused uh seasons or series of episodes but i figured something like that will give you a little bit more opportunity see what we've got for that rob would be to maybe do it by quarter if you do it beyond that it's going to warrant itself to be changed quite a bit it probably will but that's a good idea maybe a quarter week maybe just do it three months out so basically do three months out but always update it for like the next quarter during the last month of the quarter yeah you
Transcript Segments
[Music]
yeah that's really cool i'm it excites
me to have these conversations
um one of the reasons i'm
really um
excited is is you know they're
as i'm sure we all have just a bunch of
different ideas you want to implement
um and maybe just having a set aside
time to
come together with some friends and
have that accountability actually go
heads down on it and do something about
it you know that'd be really cool
just even just in a boot camp setting
where we're learning but also being
purposeful about implementing the things
that we're uh talking about it's really
cool it's really cool i'm excited about
that
now with that accountability
is one day a week sufficient for that
because one of the things
we had kind of thrown out there was
maybe splitting up the mentoring
piece a little bit you know how we have
like the beginning part where we're at
what are we doing maybe pull that
section out and maybe do that on like a
monday or a tuesday evening like have a
brief maybe 30 15 30 minute
meeting
move that there so it's earlier in your
week so you can kind of attack it during
the week
and then on the weekend we have a you
know
quick you know how'd you do
uh and then just go right into the
presentation
yeah that accountability is certainly
certainly welcome i think for me um
if i would be frank i think
committing to multiple meetings one more
than one a week would be would be
difficult just with my schedule um i
think also
um
it's it's good to have that
accountability so i'm
open to more ideas um
i don't think i'm completely turned off
by a 15-20 minute meeting on a monday
and then going from there
meeting up on saturdays i'm just
concerned for my schedule that's really
weird here so
would something like that be more would
work better if it was like uh you get a
reminder email on monday that says hey
here's the three things you need to do
today or tomorrow and then maybe
wednesday it's like hey did you get that
done because you need to get it done so
that you're prepped for for the weekend
that's a good idea um now that's like
it's a softer touch but it's also a in
your face a reminder i like that um
i was even
geared toward like a um
a reminder to go add your status to uh
slack or something like that and say hey
where you at uh go put it in the slack
just to have again that extra layer of
accountability someone didn't post their
status in slack maybe it's someone needs
to be reached out to him a little a
little bit more i know this is not work
and i'm not trying to make it work i
think um
my uh my my issue isn't necessarily
you know that i don't want to get it
done it's just the making of the time
and having that accountability is
probably good for me it may not be best
for everybody
yeah that's the challenge with all of
these is that it's
you know we've all got other stuff to do
and so it's
finding the right
um
it's really it's a it's sort of like
it's it's a balanced thing it's finding
the right balance to say well how much
do you want to to put into this
and how much can you put into this and
then finding a way to
you know give that nudge to say hey
if you want to do this this is what you
you know you need to do
today or you know the next 24 hours to
make sure that you're properly prepared
that you've given this the time that you
want to
uh an example of that
was uh it was this year maybe it's last
year i think was this year started the
year with the 21 day challenge where it
was
yeah it was it was fairly
open-ended i think as it was basically
hey
day one and actually i think it was like
day
you know minus one or something like
that the day or two before you started
what do you wanna do what do you want to
accomplish at the beginning of this year
and then
you know the the day before said okay
we're going to get started tomorrow and
then day one it was a you know it's
basically it was just a it was an email
reminder that said okay
spend your
you know 5 10 15 minutes whatever it was
make sure you get that done
and i think it came out at like 5 00 a.m
or 6 a.m or something like that so sort
of start of the day said hey if you want
to do this once you just go get it done
now and then you're done
and then day two would come through and
say okay
you should have gotten day one done if
not go catch up
and let's you know get yourself going
forward and then it was just daily
reminders
that was you know basically a
combination of congratulations you've
made it you know a week you've made it
two weeks you made it 15 days in a row
whatever it is but also
reminders and nudges to say hey if you
didn't
for example like on the weekend hey if
you didn't get that done this week this
is a perfect time for you to go catch up
on that thing that you wanted to do
um so stuff like that is just
that combination of how much do you want
to put into it and then a nudge to say
hey did you get that done and if you
haven't let's let's either catch up or
let's at least get it done today so we
can we can get a streak started
yeah yeah that's good
other
suggestions comments topics
things to discuss
yeah one thing
i kind of like how you're putting things
in the meetings in that rob but like
what we just talked about i think maybe
if we find a tool or maybe use jira or
something to
kind of keep that in your face
kind of reminder type thing
yeah we had a you know we had the trello
board that we used for a while
um but maybe something like that where
it's more
reminders that it's out there uh because
we'd go put stuff in you know when we'd
set our talk about our goals for the
next meeting but there it was really
then we just didn't touch it again until
the next meeting so maybe something like
that where we just sort of
you know find a way to do an automation
and there may be a nice tool like that
that
says hey you were going to get the x
done by
you know why date and you've got a week
to get that done have you worked on it
um so you may find something like that
which could be in itself a good little
tool for us to get used to as sort of a
a nudger type application or something
like that that periodically it's it's
built to remind you hey you're going to
work on that
well didn't jira buy trello so isn't
that integrated with okay
so
i think trello has a plug-in for slack
so maybe we could connect it to our
slack channel and maybe
drive it that way
uh we could it does have one um i think
it's based on updates but
um
there are some things like that that i
thought about looking at one's called um
what's it called oh
it's called stand up alice um
that is a slack
plug-in
and all it does is you set it up and
it's just like it asks you you know at x
time like at 8 00 am every day let's say
all right
time for today's stand up what did you
do what are you gonna do and then
it gives you a reminder that at like 8
30 it would just it post everybody hears
what everybody you know put for their
status so it's an automated stand-up
tool
but something like that where you just
you know you get sort of a check-in kind
of thing that says hey how you doing on
that
and it's it's
it's not a super soft touch but it's
it's about as soft as you're gonna get
because it's basically hey give me an
answer and if you don't then it's just
gonna say hey you know michael didn't
respond today you know something along
those lines but it's just enough to you
know give you that little nudge to say
hey you know there's that little bit of
accountability
so that's not a bad idea at all is to
put something like that
build some more
uh accountability or reminder tools into
some of our processes
other
suggestions comments
schedule changes anything like that
i think to me i think saturday's it's
perfect and that i like also the
flexibility like any like what you can
or is that just
weekdays sometimes it can be hard so
yeah
yeah and that's like i said it's it
seems to work that we don't
we don't
firmly stick to it plus we have you know
at least usually in the summer you know
maybe july it seems like or august so
we'll we'll take some time off and then
at the end of the year we typically take
some time off so
it's not
for me being someone who cranks out
presentations on a lot of these it
doesn't feel like it's an in you know
overly burdensome so i'm and i'm hoping
that's the way it is for everybody else
it doesn't feel like it's
it's too much or too rigid
others questions comments suggestions
all right so let's see
uh so let's see next steps
um some changes and stuff so it sounds
like from the mentor point of view we're
in pretty good shape there we will look
at
potentially some longer term
or some some longer session things that
we may want to cover
uh what we'll probably end up doing is
maybe put out to everybody sort of a if
we get sort of a short list of here's
three or four things that we could do
is see what what people would want to do
and then probably nail that down a
little bit more like hey do you want it
would you be willing to do four hours on
a saturday or six hours on a saturday
would you rather do
six hours on one or three hours across
two different saturdays some of those
kinds of combinations
um
are we
and maybe i think it's probably under
that communication changes is maybe
we'll look at some options for
being
more frequent touches
uh and how that may you know help us out
as far as accountability and things of
that nature
particularly with a mentor class every
other week
then it wouldn't be hard for us to maybe
you know on the weeks that we're not on
the mentor class is send out a little
reminder email that says hey you were
going to work on a b and c how's that
working you know just like a simple
nudge type email um
i've got a really good list of topics uh
that have come out of this some some
future things to take a look at
so
those would be some of the things that
will you know especially some of the
more like the application architecture
and patterns and things of that nature
uh that will and and i do like the
database stuff uh that's a that was a
really good suggestion as well so we
made you know swing back around to that
particularly from the more
uh technical tutorial type stuff that we
do in the youtube that may be a great
thing for us to do in
a topic for us to cover next in that
area
uh before moving off
anything else that we haven't talked
about that's a topic or anything that
anybody would want to want us to take a
look at
all right you're
done
uh let's see
i do want to remind everybody and we we
talk about this every time we have a
mentor session but
that it is i think it is worthwhile for
you to take a look every so often at
least out at the development or site
there's a there's a lot of content that
gets
more or less routed through that to some
way in some way form or fashion
um
if you have if you ever come up with
anything info development or dot com uh
you can always hit us plus our you know
you've got our slack channels you guys
are on there
uh there's
those get responded to relatively
quickly uh maybe on a weekend or a
holiday we may not jump on but for the
most part uh you're gonna probably get a
response within i don't know within a
day
maybe immediately so even if you run
into like you know some problem you need
some help with
don't be afraid to throw it out there
and see what happens
um
the development or
channel the twitter at developing or
um there are
the way it's set up is it's about every
probably about two-thirds of the content
that goes out is not developing or
content it's links to articles and
things like that that look like they may
have interest so you know if you're
actually on twitter enough that you
actually follow you know look at a
twitter stream or that
developer nor is one i would i would
recommend
i do it myself as something that's sort
of just a
almost like a book park place that i can
go back and take a look at things and
say oh yeah that was something i wanted
to spend more time
digging into so that's
that's actually become a moderately
useful
way to to deal with twitter amongst all
the other you know i know there's a lot
of noise in that but
uh sometimes you can filter it down by
that channel or that user and that makes
it a lot easier
uh see any
anything else you guys wanted to throw
out there before we as we sort of wrap
up our a little town hall kind of
discussion this has been i
i want to thank all of you this has been
great this has been a lot of great
feedback a lot of excellent suggestions
a lot of things for us to to think about
as we move forward
um one of the things i do want to do
that i haven't mentioned
i'm not sure we even mentioned it in a
mentor class
is getting to some sort of a schedule
sort of like a topic calendar
um maybe 2022 will be the year that we
do that where ideally or
we we have something published and
mapped out that here's the next
uh 10 mentor sessions or here's
some of the details of upcoming youtube
posts or podcast episodes or things like
that you know the podcast we try to do
it by seasons
and so that you've got a rough idea of
what's coming up uh youtube channel's
sort of the same way as we tend to try
to do it in
topic special topics and things like
that sort of focused
uh seasons or series of episodes but
i figured something like that will give
you a little bit more opportunity see
what we've got
for that rob would be to
maybe do it by quarter if you do it
beyond that it's going to warrant itself
to be changed quite a bit it probably
will
but that's a good idea maybe a quarter
week maybe just do it three months out
so basically do three months out but
always update it for like the next
quarter during the last month of the
quarter
yeah
you